President Uhuru Kenyatta's bid to have an out of court settlement with Somalia over Indian Ocean maritime dispute has been backed by the US.
Already, the International Court of Justice has scheduled June 2020 for hearing, warning that no more postponement will be guaranteed by the court.
But US Ambassador Kyle McCarter on Tuesday said Washington DC has asked Somalia to drop the case from ICJ to allow negotiations between the two nations.
"I’ve been to Mogadishu to speak to the Somalia president. I told him to pull off the court case," he told the Nation.
"I’ve told them [Farmajo and Kenyatta] that the biggest hurdle is defeating al-Shabaab and that is the only way we can tap the gains on the blue economy."
During the UN General Assembly in New York few weeks ago, President Uhuru Kenyatta called for dialogue over the matter, even after his efforts to have Somalia withdraw the case flopped.
But his Somalia counterpart Mohamed Abdullahi insisted that the Horn of Africa nation was comfortable with the court process.
Despite McCarter's claims that he met Abdullahi in Mogadishu recently, Somalia Ambassador to Nairobi Mohamud Ahmed denied the reports.
"We are telling the Somali people that their was no meeting between Somali President Farmajo and my US counterpart in Kenya. We ask the Kenyan media to verify before running news," he said.
Kenya accused Somalia of encroachment in the Indian Ocean, leading to a bitter diplomatic fallout. The two nations however, agreed to restore normalcy.
The case was scheduled for hearing this November before the ICJ admitted Kenya's application to have the timelines extended.